"The One After Vegas" is the sixth season premiere of Friends, which aired on NBC on September 23, 1999. The plot continues from the previous episode; after Ross and Rachel's drunken wedding in Las Vegas, Monica and Chandler discuss moving in together. A subplot has Joey and Phoebe driving back to New York from Vegas, picking up a hitchhiker on the way while Ross and Rachel are adjusting to the fact that they are married.

Contents

Plot

This section is (partially) copied from Wikipedia. There may be an updated version available.

Ross and Rachel wake up having no recollection of getting married the night before.

The episode begins with Monica and Chandler waiting in the chapel preparing to get married. Ross and Rachel then drunkenly stumble from their ceremony and leave. Joey and Phoebe suddenly burst through the doors, and the audience is led to believe that they too are getting married. However, they see Monica and Chandler and reveal that Ross and Rachel had left them a message telling them that they are getting married.

Ross and Rachel wake up in bed, unaware that they got married the night before. Joey joins Phoebe for breakfast, telling her that his movie has been cancelled. Monica and Chandler arrive and, at the buffet, Chandler tells Joey that he and Monica were also planning to wed and expresses worry that the relationship is moving too fast. Monica shares the same concern with Phoebe but they are interrupted when Ross and Rachel arrive. When the others tell them they are married, they decide to get an annulment.

Joey encourages Phoebe to go with him on the long drive back to New York, to stop him from being lonely. She agrees but she is annoyed when Joey spends the whole first day asleep while she drives, and they switch over. As Phoebe sleeps, Joey picks up a hitchhiker. Initially outraged, Phoebe soon strikes up a friendship with the man, and gives him her number when he leaves. Joey asks for her forgiveness and they play car games.

Monica and Chandler are still shaken by Ross and Rachel's drunken marriage and are unsure about whether they should get married so quickly. They grow increasingly alarmed over all the signs they see telling them to get married. They decide to leave it up to fate again, as they had the previous night, and go back to the dice table, agreeing that if Monica rolls another eight, then they'll marry. They are both visibly upset when she does roll an eight, but quickly agree that it was not a "hard" eight (two fours), so that means they should not get married. Even after that, they keep seeing signs telling them to get married, but they finally agree that it is just too soon and they are happy with things the way they are. Despite this, Chandler still feels it is time for their relationship to move forward and suggests that they should start living together. Monica is momentarily uncertain, saying that there have not been any signs telling them to live together, but when Chandler suggests that him asking her is a sign, Monica enthusiastically agrees.

Ross tells Rachel that he does not want three failed marriages and begs her not to annul the marriage. She refuses, so Ross tells her that he will take care of it. After leading her to believe that they are no longer married, he reveals to Phoebe that he did not get the annulment. Phoebe soon comes to the conclusion that this is because he still loves Rachel.

Crew

Production

This section is (partially) copied from Wikipedia. There may be an updated version available.

Courteney Cox had gotten married to David Arquette between seasons and Arquette was added to her name in the opening credits. For this episode, it was added to everyone else's (along with the creators) as well.

The new sets constructed for the previous episode were left standing over the summer hiatus, allowing the production team to resume filming on the Vegas sets with minimal disruption. A discussion was held during rehearsals about the ink Ross and Rachel had applied to each other's faces in the previous episode; dialogue had established that it was permanent and Marta Kauffman was keen to show it was still there in the scene where Ross and Rachel arrive at breakfast, albeit fainter than before. Others preferred that it was gone completely and this was what was shown in the scene as filmed. There was worry that people would not understand the joke that indicated Rachel had married someone in a Vegas wedding, but a vox pop of the audience showed they did.

During editing, three minutes and 40 seconds were trimmed from the episode to bring it down to the appropriate running time of 22 minutes. Additional time was created for this and future episodes by shortening the theme song from 45 seconds to 35. Production required 52 takes, 14 scenes and seven rewrites.

Between seasons, Cox married David Arquette, becoming Courteney Cox Arquette. An in-joke reference to this is made in the opening credits, where the rest of the cast (and executive producers) have "Arquette" appended to their names. The dedication "To Courteney and David, who did get married" appears during the fade out to the tag scene.

Reception

This section is (partially) copied from Wikipedia. There may be an updated version available.

Entertainment Weekly rates the episode B+, praising Schwimmer and Aniston for spinning "new variations on Ross' and Rachel's twisted romantic fates" and citing the line "This is not a marriage -- this is the world's worst hangover!" as the best line of the episode. The authors of Friends Like Us: The Unofficial Guide to Friends also mention this line, and praise the moments when Monica and Chandler act like newlyweds, however hard they try not to. They describe Ross's actions as "predictable" but wonder "just how far the writers will go before we all tire of Ross's self-centred, clinical logic trampling over the feelings of the very people he claims to love the most."

The episode was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Sound Mixing in a Comedy Series or Special at the 52nd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards but lost to an episode of Ally McBeal.

Trivia

General

This is the first episode where the gang make fun of Ross's failed marriages.

When Phoebe is asleep and Joey is driving the taxi, the theme tune from the film Taxi Driver starring Robert De Niro plays.

Rachel's line, "This isn't a marriage, this is just the world's worst hangover!" was actually improvised during shooting, as the original line, "Stop saying the word 'marriage'!" wasn't considered funny enough.

Courteney Cox is credited before Jennifer Aniston in the opening theme. This was due to the name changing joke.

Phoebe wakes up Joey while they are driving because she is angry that they started their road trip 6 hours ago but Joey has been asleep for 5.5. Presuming they left after breakfast as implied, Phoebe was driving drunk.

Chandler says that the door to the apartment has not been locked in five years, a reference to "The One Where Underdog Gets Away" (S1E9), where everyone accidentally gets locked out of Monica and Rachel's apartment.

Goofs/Continuity

The dialog between Chandler and Monica is reshot for this episode, and not the original from the previous episode. In the previous episode, the dialog is: "Chandler: Ok, this is it. We're gonna get married. Monica: Are you sure you want to do this?". This episode's dialog is: "Chandler: Ok, this is it. Monica: Are you sure you want to do this?". The way both actors say the dialog is different too.﻿

Monica's hair is noticeably longer in the wedding chapel at the beginning of this episode when compared to her hair at the end of the previous episode in the wedding chapel.

When Joey and Phoebe are running into the chapel, Joey is yelling for Phoebe to hurry, to which she replies with an OK, but, if you look closely, neither of their lips are moving.

When Phoebe and Joey are talking at breakfast about driving home together, Phoebe's fork keeps disappearing and reappearing as the camera angle changes.

When Ross and Rachel come down to breakfast, all the writing is gone from their faces. However, in the previous episode, they were told on the phone that the pen would not come off. The producers had a lengthy conversation about this detail. In addition, even though Ross drew on Rachel's face almost twelve hours before she drew on his, the writing on their faces fades at exactly the same time. And earlier in the episode when they woke up in bed together the pen on their face was still on, but faintly, they couldn't have gotten it off by the time they went down to breakfast.

During breakfast, when Phoebe says she's drunk, Chandler's hand goes from his face to his side when the camera angle changes.

During breakfast, when Ross says that he doesn't love to get divorced, Rachel's hand suddenly is on her face after the camera angle changes.

In Central Perk, when Ross is telling Rachel that he doesn't want to get the annulment his can of soda just says & W, the brand is called A & W.